Monthly Archives: March 2011

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Verizon is apparently on quite the policy changing mission these days. First we had news of their upgrade policy, then it was return changes, rebate removals, and now this. As of February 1st, equipment protection plans will be changing and in a good way from what we’re seeing. Total Equipment coverage (TEC) will be dropping from $7.99 down to $6.99, plus Wireless Phone Protection (WPP) will now be $5.18, which is down from $6.00. Their tablet plans appear to be unchanged even with the Motorola XOOM on the way, but for those of us looking to grab a Thunderbolt, this is good news.

Verizon also plans to hold an “open enrollment” of sorts for those already locked into one of these plans. A timeline for that event will be communicated at a later date.

Like this:

No one wants to see Motorola and more recently HTC implement locked bootloaders and truely tie down the “openess” of Android. Because this site is heavily focused on Android customization, I know all of our visitors would like to have complete control of their devices. After all, you payed money for your phone, who are they to tell you what you can and cannot do with it?

This petition has been noticed by Motorola. We need to use our muscle from Custom-Android.net to continue to the fight.

Please everyone, take a few seconds out of your day and sign this petition.

Like this:

So I’ve kinda tweaked my latest setup. It’s deffinately my favourite so far and looks amazing on my OLED screen. Yeah, I know theres alot of scarlett, but what can I say, I like seeing her 😉 It’s an incredibly functional home screen with the ability to change it to any need. Continue reading →

Like this:

Today’s screens. Been a while since I posted. Similar to my last.
This isn’t what I was originally going to post but I could NOT
get my original to look the way I wanted so I threw this together.
My font refused to change also so I was stuck with Comfortaa
which doesn’t look good with this setup but oh well.

Widgets:
-Minimalistic Text
-WidgetLocker

Details:
–Wallpaper
–Lockscreen
-Dock is by Matt(mkcm97). I embedded it into the wallpaper to make
things easier and I forgot to save a copy without it, but if enough people
ask, I will make another without it.
Dock is in his modded files

Like this:

I had a handful of folks asking about my latest setup and questioning the functionality and day-to-day usability of the screen. Not really in a WTF kind of way, but honestly, that’s how I took it. Damnit.

So here goes, the first tutorial for me: E Pluribus Minimus, -Splained

This is where we are going so buckle up folks.

First, we have the basics of Minimalistic text and wallpaper…

If you need help with these two items here’s what I can offer: use a custom layout for the clock on minimalistic text and override the size to be in the 70’s somewhere. Maybe an accent too. The wall will be your preference but the one I used is here. I think it looks good.

So just to be clear, we’re using ADW EX launcher here. Anyone with LPP can stick around, but you may have to get creative with some of the features that we use. Not saying it can’t be done, but it may take some gumption on your part.

Okay notice the dock, 5 spots for whatever the heck we want on there. I have been using transparent icons for a while now (since Windows 6.1?) and I can’t get over them. So guess what, that’s what I did. I assigned invisible icons for each of the two outside to look like the following:

Next you’ll notice that weird looking icon above the center icon on the bottom… that one in the picture just above the middle + sign, looks kind of funny? Like a bar and an arrow and some dots on the bottom…

On ADW you have the option to create ‘Launcher Actions’ and this icon is “open/close dockbar”. This is a secondary dock in ADW that give you an option to toggle docks. Make this transparent and remember where you put it.

The icon above it is the app drawer. I swapped mine with a sharp looking white circle icon, -simple and clean.

This is where we should be now. Kinda. Yes? Good. I’m not going back.

So you LPP guys can probably drop out here. Unless you know of features that I have yet to discover. In that case, feel free to PM me on XDA… 😉

Here’s where it gets really cool- remember the icon that creates the different dock? The one I told you to remember? The ‘dockbar’?

We’re going to use it now.

Watch this!

We tap on that and a vague shadow appears on the bottom of the screen. Little do we know, but that shadow is that dang ‘ol dock bar we’ve been talking about this whole time!

Well (hehe) here’s what we do with it. Take an app that you want to have access to and create a shortcut on the desktop. I would recommend folders as they have more functionality and versatility. (Yes I still use folder organizer… no comment).

Cram your apps in your folders and take a moment to change the icon.

I use an icon that matches the clock I’m sporting at the moment, keeping the clean interface.

-Sidenote

Yeah, I know the size of the clock on the first screen vs. the one we’re working with now is different. So?

-Maybe I flashed a font that crashed my whole get-up… Who knew?

Sheesh!

Now you’re getting to where you need to be. Functional. Drag your new apps/folders down to rest on your dock.

Hopefully you ended up looking something like this with all kinds of functionality.

WARNING: This tutorial is heavy on images, so if you have a slow internet connection it might take a while to load up completely, there are almost 30 images in total.

First let me say something, I’m not a Photoshop Guru or anything similar, I like to experiment and play with my pc programs, therefore this is my very own method for this particular technique. If anyone here knows of a better way to achieve similar results, please share the information and help the us build a better Android community by sharing our knowledge.